Chandra Waring is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at UMass Lowell.

Chandra D.L. Waring, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Pronouns
she/her
College
College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
Sociology
Phone
978-934-4123
Office
Dugan Hall 205L

Expertise

Race/racism, Bi/multiracial Americans, Intersections of race and gender, Qualitative research methods

Education

  • Ph.D.: Sociology, University of Connecticut, 2013
    • Dissertation: "Beyond 'Code-switching:' Racial Capital of Black / White Biracial Americans"
  • Graduate Certificate: Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Connecticut, 2010
  • M.A: Sociology, University of Connecticut, 2009
  • B.A.: Sociology, University of Connecticut, 2007

Biosketch

Chandra D. L. Waring's research focuses on the growing bi/multiracial American population. Her first study centered the experiences of Black/white biracials by exploring their family relationships, immigrant connections, dating patterns and preferences and their interactions with the white and Black communities. Her work decenters the short-sighted, yet convenient narrative that the increasing bi/multiracial Black/white population is evidence of a less racially contentious and more racially harmonious society. In a population that is often framed as the embodiment of a racial panacea, her work illuminates the complex and invisibilized racial realities of this community.

Her new study examines the comprehensive impact of whiteness in the bi/multiracial population of a variety of racial backgrounds (Black/white, Latinx/white, Asian/white and Indigenous/white). She explores how this subgroup articulates white privilege, how they experience white privilege and how white ancestry-and particularly appearing white-generates some disadvantages for them. She also investigates how their racial and ethnic backgrounds are policed by monoracials (single-race individuals). Her research complicates and updates the literature on white privilege and expands the scholarship on bi/multiracials by focusing on individuals of many bi/multiracial backgrounds.

Selected Publications